Nebraska City's Pontoon Bridge

Although Congress had chartered the Nebraska
City Bridge Company in the early 1870s, by summer 1888 only the
new Burlington Railroad bridge spanned the Missouri River there.
Nebraska City leaders were receptive, when Col. S. N. Stewart
of Philadelphia proposed to build a pontoon toll bridge if the
community would subsidize its construction.

The pontoon bridge, estimated to have cost
about $18,000, opened to much fanfare on August 23, 1888. Not
only was it claimed to be the first such bridge across the Missouri
River, but also the largest drawbridge of its kind in the world.
The pontoon section crossing the main channel was 1,074 feet
long, with a l,050-foot cribwork approach spanning a secondary
channel between an island and the Iowa shore. The roadway, including
two pedestrian footways, was 24.5 feet wide. Opening the "draw"
(the V-shaped portion that could swing open for boats or flowing
ice) provided a 528-foot-wide passage.

While the bridge operated successfully
during ice-free months or when the river was not unusually high
or low, the capricious Missouri soon created problems. It became
increasingly clear that a permanent wagon bridge was still needed,
and in the spring of 1890 the city fathers began planning an
election to vote bonds to build one. Stewart responded by threatening
to remove the pontoon bridge.

Voters approved the bridge bonds in July;
the courts initially upheld them against a series of legal challenges
mounted by the Burlington Railroad. The Burlington claimed it
had acquired the Nebraska City Bridge Company's original charter
to build the railroad bridge and therefore, the railroad was
entitled to the bonds. In the face of these developments, Stewart
announced that the bridge had been sold to parties in Atchison,
Kansas. On November 13 the pontoons were sent down the river
toward the bridge's new home. A month later, the U.S. District
Court ruled the bridge bonds were invalid. Nebraska City was
back where it had started.

In 1891 the Burlington laid planks beside
the tracks across the railroad span so it could be used as a
toll bridge for non-railroad traffic. Nebraska City's dream of
a permanent vehicular bridge was finally realized on October
14, 1930, with the opening of the Waubonsie Bridge, constructed
by the Kansas City Bridge Company. Long gone, but not entirely
forgotten, was the innovative pontoon bridge that had briefly
seemed the answer to the Missouri River problem at Nebraska City.